1. Field of the Invention;
The present invention relates to a vehicle door, more particularly to a vehicle door and a method for assembling the same, which can make assembly easy at a body rigging line for vehicles.
2. Discussion of The Background
A typical vehicle body is provided by welding, stamped steel plate parts together at a body welding line to prepare several subassemblies and by assembling the subassemblies into a white body. After the white body is painted at a body painting line, equipment is attached to the painted body at a body rigging line, completing the vehicle body.
A vehicle door to be assembled to a vehicle body is mainly constituted by a door outer panel arranged on an exterior side thereof and a door inner panel arranged on an interior side thereof. Both panels are stamped steal plate parts. The door outer panel and the door inner panel are assembled in a door subassembly by hemming and spot-welding at the body welding line. After the door subassembly is assembled to the body using hinges, painting including electrocoating, intermediate coating and finish coating is applied to the door subassembly at the body painting line. Finally, door equipment such as a door widow glass and a window regulator are assembled to the door at the body rigging line.
With regard to such a vehicle door made of stamped steal plates, attaching the door equipment is carried out with respect to a painted body, i.e., in such a situation that the door outer panel and the door inner panel have jointed together to provide a vehicle door panel 1 as shown in FIG. 4. It is usual that the required door equipment is attached to the door through an access opening 3 formed in the door inner panel 2.
When the door equipments, in particular, large parts such as the window regulator are attached to the door through the narrow access opening 3 in the door inner panel 2, it is necessary to carry out attachment into the door, handling such large parts at the body rigging line. This operation has required a lot of time and could damage the completely painted body. The attaching operation of such large parts through the narrow access opening involves complicated steps. It is extremely difficult to automatize the operation even if an excellent industrial robot is used for instance.
There have been some proposals wherein door equipments are attached to a single plate to provide a module and the module is attached to a door panel. These proposals can eliminate the complication caused by attachment of the respective door equipment through the access opening in a door inner panel.
For example, the following proposal has been disclosed in JP-A-6353112. The door disclosed in the publication has a door outer panel formed from a synthetic resin, and door equipment is mounted to a skeleton sandwiched between the door outer panel and a door inner panel to improve the door assembling operation.
In the vehicle door disclosed in the publication, the skeleton has a window glass sash, and the skeleton is mounted to a body through hinges, functioning as the main portion of the door. Since the door inner panel and the door outer panel work as only covers for covering the interior side and the exterior side of the skeleton, there is created a problem in that the operation for handling the door equipments in mounting the door equipments to the skeleton degrades.
If a fault in the door equipment is found after the skeleton has been attached to the body (irrespectively of prior to and after completion of the vehicle), or if maintenance of the door equipment is carried out in the future, it is difficult to carry out repairing operation without additional operation. The repairing operation is made more difficult since the door equipment have already been mounted to the skeleton. In such a case, if the skeleton itself is removed from the body, poor handling of the skeleton makes the repairing operation for the door equipments difficult because the skeleton functions as the main portion of the door.
Since the skeleton functions as the main portion of the door with the door window glass sash, each type of car necessarily requires preparation of a skeleton suited to the shape of the car. It is difficult to cope with users'car demand which requires a variety of sizes in small run as a recent significant trend, and production control is complicated.
On the other hand, U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,585 has proposed that door equipment be integrally formed with a module plate to provide a door module and the door module is attached to a door panel. In this proposal, the door inner panel has an opening formed therein, and the door module is inserted into the door panel through the opening in the door inner panel, improving ease in door attachment.
In the door disclosed in the US Patent, a cavity is provided between the inner panel and an outer panel and the door module is mounted in the cavity. Since the opening is formed in the inner panel, the door module is inserted into the cavity through the opening to be mounted in the cavity. The door module is attached in the cavity by lifting the door module from a lower end toward an upper end of the opening to insert a door window glass into a belt line formed between the inner panel and the outer panel as shown in the drawings of the US patent.
In order to handle the door module for inserting it into the opening in the operation for inserting and attaching of the door module, two-dimensional movement or three-dimensional movement in some instances is required. Specifically, the door module is moved in a direction perpendicular to a surface of the opening (a direction for advancing the door module toward the opening: a first direction) and a direction in parallel with the surface of the opening (a direction from the lower end of the opening toward the belt line: a second direction) until the door module has been mounted into the cavity. The movement of the door module in the vicinity of the opening is one that is at least a combination of the movement in the first direction and that in the second direction.
Such movement of the door module is a bar to automatize the manufacture of vehicles including doors. Rapid and simple assembly of doors by a robot in an assemble line for vehicles can significantly contribute to automation of the manufacture of the vehicles. However, the movement which is constituted by combined movement in a plurality of directions is complicated. It is not easy to carry out attachment of such a door module into the cavity by use of a robot.
In the door disclosed in the US patent, the door module as a whole becomes a large part due to the integration of the door equipments thereto. For this reason, it is necessary to develop measures to solve the problem as stated, which is inherent to the large part in handling the large part for attachment, and which is not created when the door equipment is independently mounted as usual. Since the door according to the US patent is proposed without considering the problem due to an increase of the part size, it is not possible to improve the assembling operation for the door though the door equipments are integrally formed with the module plate. In particular, since a vehicle door has a door lock attached thereto so as to provide a projection on a rear end of a door inner panel, a three-dimensional movement is required.
As a measure to solve interference by members projecting from front and rear ends of a door, there is one that has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,636 for instance. The door disclosed in the US patent has such a structure that a door module is inserted from a front end with respect to a door panel. However, this structure has required that hinges for opening and closing the door be attached to the door module. This creates a problem in that the attaching arrangement for the hinges which plays an important role for opening and closing the door can not ensure sufficient strength. If e.g. attaching position of the hinges is adjusted to solve this problem, mounting adjustment between the contour of the door itself and a door opening in the vehicle body becomes difficult. It is required that the door panel be mounted after the door module has been attached to the body through the hinges. In order to match the outer panel with the body in terms of a tone of color, painting must be carried out with the door equipment assembled into the door panel. This means that door equipment is exposed to a paint.